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Hello, welcome to jasonnewland.com and my grumbling tummy. I thought it was Andre's tummy because he's lying on my lap, but it's my tummy grumbling. So either I've just digested my food or I need to poo, I'm not sure.
Anyway, welcome, welcome to this therapeutic recording. It's let me bore you to sleep. Please only listen when you can safely close your eyes.
I'll normally go at least three or four minutes before I talk about pooing, but hello baby. You got a tickly tummy? You got a tickly tummy? You got a giggly tummy. He's definitely sticky for some reason.
You got a sticky, sticky tummy. You got a sticky, sticky tummy. You have, you have, you have a sticky tummy.
Right, I don't do this at the beginning of every recording. Let me cuddle. You all right, baby? You all right, boy? You all right, boy? Oh, stomach.
You give me kisses. You want to go? Daddy kisses. Daddy kisses.
Yeah. You're going to stay here or are you going to go away? You're going to just have a cuddle? It's Easter day today. It's Easter Sunday.
And no, there are no Easter eggs. I know there is adverts on television. I know I had no excuse to forget.
I realize I've been constantly reminded all week by the adverts. He's gone now. Where am I going to get Easter eggs, Rob? Unless I don't mind spending £10 in the garage.
Although, I might actually. I might go to the garage this morning and just buy a big Easter egg just as a little treat. But I'm probably not going to.
Probably not going to go out. I haven't been out since Thursday when I went to get some food and bits. So, it's now Sunday.
So, Friday, Saturday. Yeah, two days in. I haven't taken Andre out, so he's annoyed with me.
And for some reason, the heat has come on. The temperature's dropped somewhat tonight. It's been fairly calm.
Very calm. Very mild. And nice during the day, but even mild at night.
The last few days and tonight, it's just dropped temperature. Which makes very little difference to my life, if I'm honest. Very little difference.
Very, very, very, very little difference. So, that's it. That's all I've got to really.
That's all I've got to say. But somehow, I'll still be talking in an hour's time. And no one will know why.
No one. Not even me. Why did you do it, JJ? I don't know.
I didn't even know. So, I feel a bit tired. So, the last couple of days, the last few days, I've been making quite regular recordings, which is nice.
Do you feel like I've accomplished something when I've made a recording? Well, I've made a few. So, if I do at least one deep sleep whisper, one relaxation for stress, and the one Let Me Bore You To Sleep. If I do one of those every day, I go to bed and I'm very relaxed.
However, I'm a little bit tired. So, I'm waiting to get my second wind. My second bit of energy, which often happens around about four o'clock for some reason.
And then I will make, I'll do a deep sleep and then I'll do a, hopefully do a relaxation one as well. That's my plan. It's a very, very vague plan, but not completely vague enough to not know what I'm going to do, because I probably will do it.
Yeah, hopefully. I'll be working on a website. What I've been doing, there's so much to do.
I'll just straighten my back up a bit. There's so much to do on my website. And you probably, if you go on there, the possibility you wouldn't see what needs to be done, because I think it's looking okay.
There's still a lot of images that I need to make and replace. But all the latest recordings have got the proper images on and everything like that. But there's hundreds that haven't, but they're kind of hidden a little bit.
You can find them if you delve, but if you search, so for example, not all of my Let Me Bore You To Sleep podcast recordings have got the proper image on them, because I've not made them all yet. Not all the titles are shortened, because what I've been doing is shortening the titles of all of the, or as many as possible of the recordings on my website, so that they work better in, well on a phone. It's fine on a laptop, a long, long title is okay on a laptop, but on a phone it's really not, you know, so I have to put really small titles.
But the image is going to have written on it what it is. So that's, you know, how I'm going to do that with those ones. With the, for example, drift away and sleep, for example.
So I might just have the word drift underneath it, but there's going to be an image and it's going to say drift away and sleep on the image. Now that was boring. If ever there was a boring sentence, that was one of them.
What's the other thing? Oh yeah, recently, I think I started this yesterday or the day before, I started adding my YouTube videos to my website, but not separately, but embedding them in, when I say not separately, I mean, they're not on the table, they're in the website, but they're embedded in the actual product, I guess, the product page, because it is a shop, an online shop or an online store. So you can listen free and stream for free and all that. And now whenever there's a video, okay, they're all fairly old because I haven't made much in the way of new videos, but I'm thinking about it.
I'm thinking about it. I actually am thinking. It's just a lot of, I'm a little bit concerned because for those that have been listening, maybe for the last couple of years, I've not made much in the way of videos.
And I've done a few live broadcasts, but you might not have seen the videos. So you might have just only heard my voice and just heard my own descriptions of myself. So if I released a video and you saw me, you might be a little surprised.
I'm not blonde, six foot seven and I have muscles. You might be surprised I'm not that. And you see this bald man with big nose, glasses, beer belly, even though I don't drink beer, pink face, not even white, pinky face.
What else? I'm really, I'm selling myself here, aren't I? Yeah, it's just, it'd be, oh, and, you know, middle aged man, it's like, wow, he doesn't really sound how he looks or doesn't look how he sounds. But I also want to point out that I posted the picture on Facebook and I'd been shaving my head, but my razor ran out of charge and it took 82 hours to shave my head because the razor's not very good. It's more of a beard trimmer.
Anyway, I had a lot of hair around the sides, a little bit on top. So I posted a picture saying that Andre has stolen my wig. I realized after posting that on there that maybe some people actually do now believe that I wear a wig.
I don't, I never would, because I'm not that bothered about that. Because it's the one thing that I'm used to and that's being bald. I shaved my head hundreds of times.
So I'm used to it. But I was a little bit surprised the other day when I was looking at my hair in the mirror and I could see my scalp. This is with hair.
And I know that when my hair goes gray or white, because it kind of goes through three stages, doesn't it? With the hair. I think as you get older, there's the, well, I'm thinking of my dad really more than anything else, but it's sort of people that I've known. You get a little bit of gray, which is what I'm at.
I've got clumps of gray at the front, a bit at the sides, not much at the back. And the reason I know this is because I shaved my head and I look through it and I can see. So the hair at the back is completely brown.
And I found a few frogs there, but a bit of spawn, a bit of holly from Christmas. But other than that, there's no gray hairs. But at the sides and on top, there is a few, and there's a clump at the top.
And so there's that little period. But this has been going on for years. You know, I started going gray, I don't know, 10 years ago, probably longer, just gradually.
But it's only little bits, but it's more my beard than anything. It's all the, because I've got a ginger beard. Well, the bits that were really ginger have gone gray.
So I think that's what happened with my hair. I'm guessing, but the bits that were ginger went gray. So I'm kind of, I like having a beard and I've grown a beard back.
This is basically what's happened is I shaved my head and my face. So I shaved my beard off and I shaved my head probably a month ago, maybe two months. Well, it's got, I don't know how long ago it was.
But in that time, my hair grew quicker than my beard, if you can believe it. So my hair grows so quick and just less of it grows. It's like all those things you had plasticine and you could like squeeze it and hair would just pop out of the top of the doll.
There's nothing like that. And I, this was the second phase would probably be this to continue to the point where it starts spreading all over. So it becomes kind of salt and pepper.
They call it something, they call it salt and pepper. So it's kind of, it's dark and it's white. And even the white hairs are kind of mixed.
They're kind of a bit dark, a bit white. And there's that whole period that could last for ages. And some people would never get beyond that part.
They just stay there. And then my dad's stage, because he's in his seventies, he's been like this for quite a while. And I've had a lot of men and women, I suppose, I don't know.
He's white, his hair is white. Like it looks better than it did when it was gray. He's not gray anymore.
He's got white hair. He's, he's blonde, basically, but not blonde, but it's white. But you can see his scalp because of the white hair, but he's got better hair than I have.
So I'm a little bit concerned because he's probably, yeah, I'm probably receding. My recediation is probably about not far off what his is. And he's in his seventies and I'm 49.
And I'm thinking, ooh, and there's gaps as well. There's like little, not big patches. You can't see it when it's bald, but then why would you? But when it starts growing, when it gets to a certain length, you can see that there's, I don't know how to explain it really.
It's like someone's been plucking my hair in the night. And just left a few little spaceships come down and landed on my scalp, on my head. And I'm not really crop circles, but maybe my hairs on my head, because they've been together so long, they've just grown apart.
Literally just don't want to talk to each other anymore. Or maybe because I shave my head so often, when they do sprout up, they think, oh, I've got to start a whole new relationship with this next person next to me. Oh, she can't be bothered.
He's only going to shave us off again. So maybe there's that. So I don't have as many hairs grow.
Or maybe it's because I'm so manly and my testosterone level is so high. And that I'm just receding and I'm going to end up bald, because it's a sign of real high testosterone manliness. I literally am a walking egg.
And, or, because my brother, one of my brothers is bald on top. So he shaved his head because he really went bald. So I think this is something that's been passed on from my mother's side of family, rather than from my dad's side.
So I kind of didn't see that coming. Well, how could I? There's no way of knowing. So I don't know.
I prefer it when I have a choice. You know, shave my head and then, but then to someone, if suddenly the mirror said, by the way, I know you just shaved your head. I forgot to tell you.
That was it. That was the last of your hairs. You're not growing back.
I'd be a little bit annoyed. I'd be a bit intrigued at the mirror talking to me, but I would be a bit annoyed at the idea that, oh, I'd used up all my hairs. My hair allowance had been completely, completely used up and consumed.
I was looking for another word other than used up because I'd already used used up in the previous sentence. So consumed would have been better because I felt like I'd used up all my used up words, gone on and overused them, you know? So I kind of, a little bit concerned is when my hair goes white, when I'm maybe in my sixties, late sixties, seventies, I don't know, whenever it's going to be, it will look like I literally will have transparent hair. I'll be walking around and people just assume that I'm bald because they won't be able to see my hair.
I'll be walking around with invisible hair and I'm going to put a hat on. People will be like, your hat's floating on your head. It's floating above your head.
I said, it's not floating, it's on my hair. You don't have any hair. You're bald.
Your hat is floating above your head. How did you do that magic trick? It's not a magic trick. I have transparent hair.
My hair is invisible, but it's still there. Look, you can touch it. I want to touch it.
Why? Well, why would I want to touch something that isn't there? I said, that's a good point. That's why I haven't got a girlfriend. What do you mean? Oh, it's a dumb way.
No, no, go on. No. Can we focus on the hair? Oh yeah.
You've got silly hair. Actually, no, I don't want to focus on that now. Can you go away? I can do what I want.
So yeah, it's not a worry. I'm not that bothered. It's not something that I'd get all emotional and need to write a poem about, but I do think about it.
I think, because I know that some women, I'm talking from a romantic perspective, some women I've said, I've heard say, that they like men with hair. But then I've had hair most of my life, apart from when I've been bald. But I think you can see, you can kind of see when someone's bald, bald, and when they shave their head, I think, because you can see the outline of the hairline.
See, my hairline is there. So you can see that I'm not bald. You can see that I'm receding.
But then it doesn't, I like to think that my brain is just getting bigger with all the huge intelligence, the daily expansion of intelligence, which is creating my forehead to become larger. And that's what's pushing the hairline back. Could be a tumor, but hopefully it's just my brain activated and stimulated in a way that will surprise and delight you.
Sorry, I got into a hypnotic rhythm. Surprise and delight you in such a way that when you think about future times, when you'll be in exactly the same situation, you feel so infused with energy and excitement and your feet feel like they're made of chocolate and use one nibble. Okay, I'll stop.
I'll stop. For some reason, I don't know why, for some reason, I'm able to talk. I don't need to point this out.
I can talk rubbish. You know this if you listen to me. You know, I can just talk and talk and talk and talk and talk and talk and talk.
With hypnosis, I can talk and it flows. And I don't know why it flows because I don't read a script. I don't make a script when I'm doing a hypnosis session.
I'm just trusting on my brain to come up with the next word. It really is that sometimes is the next word. I don't know what I'm going to say next.
It's not that I don't know where I'm aiming for. You know, so if I'm doing a session for stop biting your nails, I know that it's about stopping biting your nails. So I'm not going to be talking about trains necessarily, or Andre's smelly feet.
But I don't know why it flows. I don't want to question it because I like it. It's one of the few things I do actually quite like about myself, the ability when it does flow to just, and it does pretty much always flows when I'm making a recording.
Not these, I mean, the hypnosis. Okay, today is going to do a poop. It's the other side of the room.
He did a big poo, right, on the paper, the other side of the room. And he came off, wiped his bum on the carpet, which is lovely. And he laid on his back.
He looked at his bum, and then he got up again, walked over to where he'd just done a poo, and had a big sniff. And he just shook his head and ran back. It's like, ooh, what on earth was that? Do you want another cuddle, Andre? Do you want a cuddle waddle? Waddle, waddle, waddle, waddle, waddle, waddle, waddle, waddle.
Do you want a kissy, wishy, wishy, wishy, wishy? A cuddle, waddle, waddle? Does Andre want a cuddle, waddle? Do you think this is embarrassing? But it's even more embarrassing when you realize that he's completely ignoring me. And it's even more embarrassing when you realize, when you find out that I don't actually have a ferret living here. I just made him up.
Oh, do you remember that Jason? He used to pretend to do hypnosis recordings and stuff like that. I remember that. I remember him.
Yeah. Is that the one that used to pretend he had a ferret? So everyone thought that he had a friend. Yeah.
Blimey. He was actually talking to himself the whole time. Wow.
Wow. And is that the one that used to listen to his own recordings continuously? So to pretend that he actually had people listening? No, he wouldn't do that, would he? Yeah, he used to leave it. He had about 15 different devices that were all listening to his podcast constantly, 24 hours a day, so that he could get his stats up.
And the fact is he didn't have anyone listening ever. No, he wouldn't do that. I'm just thinking that's quite a good idea.
I would get my stats up, wouldn't I? But then what's the point? What's the point of lying to yourself? There's no point, is there? It's like cheating on a test, or it's like doing an online test and then googling the answers. I mean, what is the point? There's zero point to that. Anyway, I don't do that.
I don't. I honestly don't. I don't even listen to myself, really.
I tried recently. I tried because I thought, what if I tried to get together the best of Let Me Bore You To Sleep? Because now it's over 370 recordings, well over 400 hours. There's got to be at least 20 minutes worth of good stuff, some funny stuff.
There's got to be something there that's mildly amusing or that I could put down as the best of Let Me Bore You To Sleep. And I started listening to the first recording, and the first recording was a hypnosis session, basically. And so it was this, how it is now, is developed very different to how it used to be.
But I might start listening a little bit back to some of the other stuff and maybe to recreate some of that as well. But I don't know, I think some people really liked the early stuff and then stopped liking it because they realized I really was like this. And it wasn't some kind of like character.
It's like, oh, you mean you're a real person? Yeah, yeah, this really is me. I really thought you were just exaggerating. Just, you know, no, no, this is actually me.
Oh, oh, I'm not sure who you like that. You can't, well actually I've got on my wall. This is a really good saying, and it's by Buddy Holly.
And it says, the best way to fail is to try to please everyone. And yeah, I can't, I know it's an old saying, you can't please everyone, but there's no point even trying. And so, and also sometimes people get really excited about me and what I do, and then they disappear.
They're kind of really like, I'm the best thing in the whole wide world. And then a week later they're gone. It's like, okay.
But then there's other people that stick around for a long time. And there's other people that stick around for years that have been following me, not following me like a religious figure, but that have been listening to my recordings for 10 plus years. So it's a, which surprises me a little bit because I've changed what I do.
I've changed as a person during that time. I think I'm not quite as uptight as I used to be with my recordings. So when I first started it was, I think it was, it was me saying hello, and welcome to Jason Newland, not anyways, www.jasonnewland.com. In fact, I had a high pitch voice.
Welcome to Jason www.jasonnewland.com. This is going to be a relaxation session. And I'll be sort of going, now your head is relaxed. Now your eyes are relaxed.
Now your ears are relaxed. Now your chin is relaxed. Now your boobies are relaxed.
I'll just be going through all the different parts of the body. And I guess if you do anything long enough, you become confident. I've become confident, more confident, maybe not more competent, but more confident.
And it's, it's strange. It's strange, just to me, it's a bit strange, the whole, because I don't think I would ever have done anything like this 10 years ago, or 14 years ago. When I started doing this, I would not have just chatted in this way.
I did do some blogs or some vlogs. So it's not totally true that I wouldn't do anything like this, because I started to doing vlogs. But they weren't called vlogs.
I don't even know if vlogs were around back then. But when I first started, shortly after I started doing recordings, I think it was 2007, I started making update videos, where I would sort of say thank you to the people for listening. I've got a new recording.
I'm starting university in September to do a counselling course, you know, stuff like that. And then I did another update video where I'm sitting in the room of my in the town that I'm doing the university course. And this is probably November, December 2008, no 2007.
So I'm sitting there on the bed. And saying, yeah, I've now moved and this is what I'm doing. It's snowing outside and I'm going to be doing more recordings.
I'm now off for Christmas, because the university is closed until January. So I've got five weeks or four weeks or whatever off. And I don't know, it's quite cool.
But I didn't, there weren't, I didn't know about vlogs, really. Although I might have done, but I don't think I did. As far as I remember, Boston Chicky was the first person to introduce me to vlogging, I think.
And that was in 2011. And so Boston can, well, you can't be saying anything on here, can you? You can remind me if that's true or not. And then I kind of got into the vlogging, making videos, and I used to call it Jason Chats.
And then I did another one called The Bearded Lover. I did another one called, I don't know, I did some weird, weird titles because I kept deleting my stuff. But I've got quite a few Jason Chat videos stored on one of my hard drives.
One of my, I only got one hard drive. But it's, you know, I might look into that because I want to start putting, storing some of that stuff into the cloud as well, onto my Microsoft Cloud. So yeah, maybe, maybe I'll make them available on my website.
I don't know. The thing is, because this really is kind of like a Jason Chats vlog, but it's longer. I was saying that some of those, you know, other people were doing vlogs for like 10 minutes, because that was the ideal time.
Videos were ideally short because you'd get more views if you had a shorter video, well edited short video. Some of my videos lasted forever. I had one that lasted at least three weeks.
Because, and of course, I'm not like that anymore. But there was a time once I started talking, I just couldn't stop. Luckily, you know, I'm very, very quiet, reserved person.
But back then. Another thing that was weird is I'd make vlogs when I wasn't in the best space to be doing it, like mentally. And some of them would be a bit chaotic, really a bit out there.
And so yeah, it was, I wish I had them all now, because I did hundreds, made hundreds. And I kept deleting them and then I'd make, you know, I'd do 20, delete and then I'd make another 30, delete them. And yes, I had hundreds.
But I probably got about 30, 30 videos stored somewhere. Might be more, but I think it's about 30. You know, I kind of, yeah, I like the idea of doing a daily vlog for my website.
But I kind of, it's the idea of re-saying what I'm already saying. But it just seems a bit boring because I don't like to repeat myself. Although, apart from when I enjoy repeating myself.
But you know, I don't want to do this. It's just like, if I made this recording and the recording stopped, or I pressed the stop button by accident or whatever, the battery ran out. Not the vibrator, I'm talking about the phone.
The battery, you know, that needed to be charged, or the battery in the microphone or whatever. And I just, you know, sometimes I don't do recording after that. I just say, nah, that's done.
Especially if I've been talking for maybe 10, 15 minutes or more. I don't want to do it. You know, once I started, then I'll continue.
But if I have to start all over again, and I'm not going to repeat what I just said. I'm not saying to you, don't ask me questions. But I'm not going to, you know, because then it's not spontaneous.
Even if the spontaneity is boring, and talking about nothing, at least it's spontaneous. It's not planned. And I like that about what I do is none of it's really planned.
And which shows in my professionalism, because there is none. There's no professionalism at all. But, but, but, but sometimes with the Deep Sleep Whisperer, I do work out some ideas for recordings.
I need to do that again, because I think I've got 208 now uploaded. That's a lot of recordings that are specifically about falling asleep. A lot of different recordings that I mean, unlike these ones, I know there's 370 something, but it is just me just waffling on.
With the Deep Sleep Whisperer, it's hypnosis ones, it's more focused. Well, it is focused. So I'm going to be looking and listening to every single one of those recordings, writing down.
I'm not going to listen to the whole thing, but just listen enough so I remember what it is I talked about. And then I make a note and start keeping a file on my computer, saving it on the, on the cloud. So I'm going to do more of that.
Save it on Word and then start printing out bits. And I want to get a little bit more organized. That's what I quite like to do.
And I'd like to do this. I'd like to do this for the rest of my life. This, you know, making recordings, perhaps making, you know, writing some books possibly.
But just doing this, not doing therapy one-to-one. I just don't think that's me anymore. I've, I might be wrong.
You know, I might, I might still have it. And I think I was, I think I was pretty good in the past. But I don't think it's me now.
I don't think it's, it's, especially over the last five years, since I've been living here, I've been putting more time into these recordings and, you know, kind of becoming more comfortable with it, becoming more, more able to be me. I think that's why I like the hypno chats. I'm going to still push.
I'm still going to push the hypno chats and the hypnotic buffet. I don't care if only 10 people listen. They're really good.
You just don't realize. Some of the hypno chats is, I used to make the early ones while I was in the therapy room in between clients. So I might have, there might be three or four slots that I'm booked in, but I only have three clients because one of the slots has not been filled yet, or they've canceled or whatever.
So I use that, I would use that time. And we're talking 2011, 2012 time. And I'd use that time to record myself on my iPhone.
It's a really nice room, a lot of light coming in. So that was really good. I have a plant behind me.
So I'd video myself and it would be, the idea, it would be like a vlog, like a Jason chats at the beginning. And then I would lead into talking and lead into a hypnosis session. That was the plan.
And I enjoyed making them. I made a couple that perhaps, I've not listened to them, but they're around the time of my men dying, that perhaps weren't, they might not have been gratefully, they might not be useful to anyone else. So I've not ever listened back to them.
Perhaps I should. Maybe I should remove them. But I left them there because they were part of the, they were part of that period and they were part of the thing, the hypno chats set.
But I was planning to do that for years. I mean, I don't mean I was thinking about doing it for years, although I was thinking about it for a while, but I was planning to continue doing it. And on YouTube, it was getting views.
People seemed to like it, but I like doing them because it gave me the opportunity to just be me rather than to be a therapist or to be, I don't know, serious or too serious. Because I think sometimes some of my recordings in the past, I do get serious and the hypnosis stuff and I do sort of get into it. And I don't think it's that I take myself too seriously, but I'm just taking the recording seriously because it's serious.
It's important to me at the time. But maybe, I don't know. I think when I do the sleep, the sleep whisper ones are fairly serious.
I mean, they're not serious, like intensely serious, but they're focused on sleeping and that's it. And they last about 20 to 30 minutes each. Sometimes just under 20 minutes, depends.
The relaxation for stress ones, it's a mixture. There's serious stuff and also the odd joke, the odd lightheartedness or a serious relaxation, hypnosis session. So it varies.
With these, it's just me being silly a lot of the time. Which, I don't know, to be honest with you, at the moment, the way things are in the news and stuff, I think a little bit of lightheartedness is possibly useful. I actually feel better now than I did before I started talking.
And I suppose I'm hearing the wonderful things I'm saying first, I'm hearing it before anyone else because I've not even uploaded this yet. But it's making me feel quite light, quite relaxed, you know? I'm feeling, correct, I said the word quiet too often. I'm feeling extremely wonderful.
And in fact, elevated, elevated, yes. So I think I'll have a little drink of water, of course, because that's the only thing I drink, not Coke. I would never drink Coke, apart from when I do.
I'm just going to maneuver my body a little bit. That's a chair, it's a bit squeaky, not squeaky, it's more scrappy, squashy kind of sound. It sounds like I imagine a slug would sound crawling across a cow's back.
Maybe not. So I wonder what new things I can do. What new things I can do for the coming year, because now April, so we've got spring.
I like spring. It's, you know, the beginnings. You know, I've had a few times in my life when spring's been quite a good time.
And let me tell you about them. Yeah. So what I'm thinking, I've just seen something on the wall, but I don't know what it is.
Oh, no, it's a newspaper. Okay. April, April, April.
Right. When I got, yeah, I left school in April, 1986. So April, I had to go back and do my exams in June or July, whenever it was.
But I left school officially because everyone left school and I was the youngest. So I was still 15, but the school closed. I remember the very last day of school, which is quite funny because I don't know what I was doing.
I was doing something in the hallway and the deputy head walked up to me and started shouting in my face. He was a French teacher, not really relevant to the story, but he was shouting in my face, very angry, very angry man. All the way through school, we just, if he was in the lineup of men and you had to sort of guess which one had hemorrhoids, which one had the piles, you'd think, yeah, that one.
Very angry. Never, ever saw him sit down, but again, not really relevant to the story. But he started shouting at me.
I don't know what I'd done. Maybe I'd been loud because, you know, that's what you do, isn't it? It's a good way to tell a child to be quiet by shouting loudly at them. Yeah.
And he was shouting. I wasn't really listening to what he was saying. He was a little bit close, I'll be honest with you.
He was getting a bit too close. I wasn't really impressed. I don't know what was in his head, but I know what was in my head.
I'm finishing school. It doesn't matter what you say, mate. I didn't say it to him.
I think I laughed at him, but I didn't sort of, it wasn't verbally rude, but I was just like, why are you shouting at me? What are you going to do? I mean, literally, what was he going to do? He couldn't do anything. What was he going to call the police because I've been running in the hallway or whatever? Was he going to physically attack me? No, that wasn't going to happen. Was he going to tell my parents? That wouldn't make no difference.
Parents have their whole family broken up anyway, so I couldn't get in trouble at home. So I still stood there and listened to him and I was laughing. I was like, this is really surreal because this teacher, this deputy head never, ever had a go at me.
And I was naughty all the way through school, but not badly naughty, just a bit. I just, yeah, uncooperative probably would be a better description. I would be, if I was at school now, I'd be in like a remedial class.
I don't have to do such a thing now, but I'd be in, in some ways, I probably should have been in a special school. But, you know, I wasn't, I was in mainstream schools and I was way behind educationally than any of the other kids in my year, pretty much. And part of that would have been because of moving around so much as a child, that never settled down, never was at the same school for long.
And in fact, the teachers, I think when I was in junior school, the parents actually told me that what the teacher said to them, that I was backward. I was, that I'd have to relearn because I didn't know anything. I literally, I'd have to sort of, they said it was like teach, I have to be taught like I was a really young, a lot younger.
My education level was a lot younger and I'd been taught wrongly all my life, which didn't really sound very right. It sounded a bit weird, being taught wrong. And I think part of that is maybe because I still had a Newcastle accent and maybe I might have written the way I was speaking.
And because the Newcastle accent is a very strong accent. And although I haven't got the accent anymore, and I haven't had it for a long, long time, I did have it. I did, because I lived there for how many years? From the age of two, pretty much.
Maybe a little bit older, to the age of about five. So I was there, you know, so that's, those are the years when you learn to talk, isn't it? Like really, you know, between two and five, that's when I was learning to yabber on. That's hard to believe that I ever used to yabber on about nothing, but I did, I think, when I was younger.
Why? I did. That's my Geordie accent. But maybe I was writing words in the way that I was saying them, so they weren't being spelt correctly.
I was doing it phonetically. And I don't know, that might be one of the things. But I could read really well.
I was well above average in reading. Well above, or at least that, at least equal. So I can't really put myself above average, but I would say I was above average in the amount of time I spent reading, because I was very into books, really, really, really into books.
And my books were my friends. They were my family. And what other things? Mathematics, forget about it.
Even now, just like, nah, no thanks. Mathematics is never really my thing. And everything is learnable, pretty much.
But you know what? I can learn how to do an operation by going online, watching videos. I can learn how to take someone's appendix out. Doesn't mean I'm going to be able to take someone's appendix out.
In real life, it's not going to happen, because I won't know how to really do it. I'll just have the idea. I felt a little bit like that with maths, mathematics, except I didn't understand the idea either.
I understood fractions, like a half. So the whole, but a whole isn't a fraction. Well, I suppose it is, but a fraction is a part of a whole, isn't it? So there's the one, then there's the half, the quarter, and three quarters.
But it should be the other way. It should be the half, but not in that order, but half, three quarters, no, three, the quarter, yeah. I don't know, but I can remember those ones.
And then things like one fifth, one sixth, one seventh, one eighth, one ninth, one tenth, and I know it's just breaking it down. So one tenth of a pound is 10 pence. One half of a pound is 50 pence.
One third of a pound, I'm supposed to know that. 33.3.3.3.3.3.3 into infinity, I don't know. A quarter of a pound, 25 pence.
But then when you start saying, well, what's a quarter of a pound and 22 pence? Don't know, don't care. You know, like, well, why would I need to know that? And there are times when it's handy to know, to be able to do mathematics in your head. And one time, the only real time that it affected me, not the only real time, but the first real challenge was, well, not the only real challenge.
Yeah, to be fair, I had a few. Working in a chip shop, taking money in the till, because I had to put the money into the till, but sometimes I had to add stuff up. But usually I could just put it into the till, you know, like, click in.
And if you work in the same place all the time, every day, even though the menu might seem quite large for someone coming in for the first time, wow, you've got a good selection. There's Rocky's, Slate, Rocky or Slate, Cod, Haddock, Fishcake, Sausages, Pasties, really scampy place. But then, you know, they've all got different prices.
But if you're the other side of the counter, and you're serving hundreds of people every day, you don't have to be good at maths, because you just have to have a good memory. Because the combination, nearly every fish, someone will buy it with chips. If they don't buy it with chips, it's even easier.
But you can remember what these things are with the chips price. And yeah, so I kind of got used to that. It took me a while though.
I think I might have even had a calculator to help me. And then I worked in the co-op bank, and not co-op bank. I would never get a job in a bank.
Not after that prison sentence. I remember I mentioned about Andre's sock, but over my head, fell asleep in the bank. So I had this job in a supermarket.
It's only a little supermarket. But again, it was putting things in manually. But from the prices, I didn't have to add it up myself.
But it was still a little bit too much. It was very over, too much for me really, at the time. Not learning from that, I went and got a job in a pub.
Not thinking, you know, for me, I was thinking, I'll be meeting women. Well, back then I was always meeting girls, because I was 18. I'm going to meet females, or maybe I'll get a girlfriend.
Maybe I'll have a social life. Because when I used to go into the pub sometimes, I'd see people and people behind the bar, everyone seemed to like them, chatting to them. And you know, I thought, oh, maybe I'll be like that.
Now in retrospect, or hindsight, whatever, I probably should have gone, I should have got a job at a different place, somewhere nice. So there was a gay club, a gay bar. It wasn't officially a gay bar, but it was a gay bar.
It was run by this man. And it was really brilliant atmosphere in there. And it was, although it wasn't, I don't know, everyone knew it was a gay bar, but it wasn't gay.
You know, everyone went there. Because back in them days, I don't think you could even have such a thing as a gay bar, especially not in that town. That wouldn't have been allowed.
You know, it was very, very conservative, little backward town. But the atmosphere was brilliant. And there was people in there that I knew, that I worked with.
And it was great atmosphere, really, really nice, beautiful bar, really lovely. If I was going to get a job, I should have got a job there, or asked to get a job there. Because then I could have, well, first of all, the man that worked there was lovely.
So I think he'd have looked after me. And it would have been, and the people that were behind the bar, the other side, were friendly, because I knew them. And it was bright, and there was loads of women, young people, you know.
But that's not the one I chose, is it? I chose an old man's pub. It was dark, dingy. It was attached to a hotel.
It's on a seafront. And it's basically all the lowlifes would go there. Not all of them.
Including me. But all the people that were just, I shouldn't say lowlifes, that's a bit judgmental, but scum, all the scum. Some of them were not very nice, to me anyway.
It was the worst pub in the whole town. It really was the dive of the town. And the people that worked there, I got on with a couple of them, but one of them that worked there was horrible to me.
I was like, well, what's going on here? I thought this was supposed to be a good job to have. And then I was supposed to add up all the drinks as I was doing them. So I'd be serving the drinks.
I'd like a bloody Mary. I'd like a wine, wine spritzer. I'd like a tequila on the rocks.
And whatever people used to buy to drink. I'd like a bitter and mild. And I'd be getting the drinks.
And then I was supposed to remember how much it cost. And I was very bad at the job. I wasn't so bad at the serving part.
But because the stress of remembering and adding up, I actually didn't, I couldn't talk to people. I just didn't enjoy it at all. It was horrible, horrible job.
I think the only time I liked it was when it was maybe on a Sunday morning. And I'd be there on my own, you know, cleaning out the pipes and just getting the place ready. And it'd be quite calm, quite relaxed.
Some of the mornings were okay, actually. But evenings, come like Friday, Saturday evening, it was kind of awful. And it was just, just full of mainly men, sort of middle-aged men or people in their 30s, late 20s.
Builders and just, and just getting angry with each other and making fun of me. I don't think, hardly anybody was nice to me the whole time I was there. It was weird.
And then a couple of them, I made friends with one person, who was the other barman, not barman. Yeah. I nearly said bar manager, but he was, he worked on the bar.
He was a little bit older than me. Probably about 19, 20. So we got on really well.
And one day, because we were opposite the beach, I'm walking across the beach to the prom. I'm about to go into work. My friend's on the beach with two of the locals that go in there, and they were both threatening him.
And one hit him. So I go on the beach and I break it up. I said, stop that.
No. I said, no. So I tapped him on the top of the nose.
I said, don't do that. No. And I just took my friend back into the pub.
And I warned, I said, you don't do that. Don't be bullying my friend. We're there.
We serve you. We serve you alcohol. We look after you.
Well, and I gave him the right old go. Not physically, just verbally. And very good as gold after that.
Actually started showing me a bit of respect, which was strange. In fact, I ended up living with them, which is weird. Lived, not with the ones that were being the bullies, or one of the ones that he actually lived in the room next to mine.
It's just, that was this, this like a year later after I'd left the job. And it's very strange, very weird. But that whole kind of calculation and trying to remember how to do stuff.
And then I was, again, I was a barman at the Butlin's, at Butlin's for Christmas season. You couldn't get busier than that. There was no busier, I don't think I could ever work in a busier bar than at Butlin's.
There was more people than I could count. And there was three bars. And there was this massive, massive room.
And it was constant. It was like, all the time, there's so many people working behind the bar. But we had our own codes or logins or whatever.
And it was high tech, because it was good. So we could just put in what they had. And then we could take our thing out.
And then we put it back in again, it still has saved what we'd already started putting in. So there's not much in a way of addition, there's a little bit, but not much. So I was quite, I got through that, but it was hard work.
But that was more hard work, because it was just really hard. One of the hardest jobs I've ever had. And probably apart from working in the bakery, for like pure physical exhaustion.
But I didn't, I didn't have enough, I didn't, I didn't have any time to not like it. I didn't enjoy it, but I didn't have enough, I didn't have any time to not enjoy it, either. There was no time to enjoy it.
There's no time to talk to any of the customers, or to get to know anyone. The staff a little bit, there's a little bit of kind of camaraderie and got a chance to talk to people, you know, a little bit, because they were standing next to me. But there was no, and we'd all sort of drink together afterwards.
And, you know, so that kind of got to know each other, but didn't get to know any of the customers, which was something that I thought would happen. I thought it'd be really cool, get to know the customers, have a few girlfriends. Well, maybe not a few, but just, you know, six or seven.
No, I just, I thought I'd get to chat to people, have a social life, you know. So I thought, I'll never, never do anything like that again. Then I worked in a bar again in 1997.
So how many bars is there? It's only three. So I've worked in three bars, three pubs, three bars, but very different. One was just horrible.
I mean, there's one point, this is totally true. I was in there, I think it was Christmas day. I was in there on my own, and someone didn't turn up, and they were still waiting on another person.
So I was there on my own. Open the doors, and there's no manager, there's no supervisor, nothing. I was just a bar staff, and a load of lads, men just came in.
This is what I'm talking about beer, about being a bit rough, very rough pub. And they said, where's your manager, where's the staff? I said, not here, no one's turned up. And they just started leaning over and helped themselves to the beer.
I said, stop. They said, what? No. So I phoned the manager, who was in his office, the manager of the hotel, who was in charge of the bar, he was in charge of everything, refused to come out of his office.
I said, look, there's a camera, you can see, because I knew they had CCTV, they had a camera in the office, watching the bar, basically make sure that we didn't steal money, I guess. I said, you can see, can't you, that they're trashing the place. They were chucking stuff around, chucking bar stools around, ripping Christmas decorations off the wall, all kinds of stuff.
Smashing glasses, all that, and I was just sitting on my own. And he refused to come out. I thought I called the police, and they refused to come out.
I thought I called, someone called the police, and they said, we are the police. So that was, that was weird. The next one, as I said, at Butlin's, so busy, never had an opportunity to get bored, or to get annoyed, really.
It was hard, the hard graft. It was work, continuously, from getting in to leaving. It was constant, constant, constant, constant, constant.
And then, when I was at the comedy club, I used to help behind the bar, our choice. That's where it changed. When I chose to do it, because I love, I've talked about that place, I love the place so much.
And I was quite happy to help the bar staff out. And just, you know, I do it by choice, because I wasn't a bar staff, I wasn't a barman, not there. But I would help out and my main thing was, if there was a, if it was really busy, I'd just say to people, who, who wants beer? And I'd say, I'm not serving any other alcohol, but beer.
So whoever wants beer, come over here. And I'd have a little queue of people, because then I'd pour the beer, be easy. I knew how much it was.
I knew what button it was. Sometimes I wouldn't even need to, if they gave me the right money, I'd put it into the till when I'd finished serving all of them. Because I was trustworthy, I don't, I don't steal, I'm not a thief.
So I'd, generally I'd put it in the till there and then. But if someone else had the till open, I'd put it at the side of the till, you know, something like that. But I'd always remember how many people I'd served.
And that really, I quite liked that, because I was behind the, behind the bar. I was able to talk to people, but at the same time not having to serve them. Because I was also washing the glasses as well.
I'd also have a night wipe down and keep the place clean. You know, I'd just help out really. But it was, I liked it.
Sometimes I'd help get the drinks ready for the waitresses and waiters to take to the table, because there was drinks at this side. I'd do wine. I didn't, don't like wine with corks.
I struggled a little bit with that. I did. But other things, never been a big fan of spirits, like measurements, or how much.
But, you know, I got to learn a bit, but I'm not, I mean, technically I do know, or I did know my way around the bar, because I had three bar jobs. So I do kind of know my way, how to do stuff. But it's been a long time.
I actually got another bar job in the pub opposite where I lived when I was at university. This was 2008, I think it was. And it was a Friday, no, it was a Saturday night.
And I was sitting there with my landlord, and we were having a drink. And the bar manager, the owner of the bar, the pub, I got on really well with him. And I don't know how the conversation went around it, but he basically said, well, you can have a trial if you want.
We need a part-time staff, if you're willing to do sort of random hours. And you could do a trial tomorrow in the morning, because it's the busiest, one of our busiest periods is Sunday morning, Sunday lunchtime. He said, you can just come.
He got me to go behind the bar and see if I could pour a pint, which I can. I even know how to put a head on it as well. And of course, you have to find a head.
Someone's willing to lend you their head. So I just did that. And he would say, yeah, you can pour a pint.
And he said, I was really pleased. And he said, well, yeah, but millions of people can do that. You know that, don't you? I said, yeah, don't take away the glory.
I'll always kick you in the shins. And he said, you know, it's not a great start in being an employee with me. I said, I'm sorry.
He said, that's okay. And we kissed. Kissed and made up.
And he said, I'll come tomorrow at 11. And this was probably about seven in the evening. Well, it might be Friday afternoon, Friday evening, I don't know.
He said, come in at 11 and you'll just be here till, I don't know, two o'clock or something. And you can help with the drinks and maybe, you know, that's it really. I said, cool.
Half 10, Sunday morning, I phoned him up and said, sorry, I'm ill. I can't make it. I couldn't, just couldn't go in.
I couldn't face, I don't know why, but it's just anxiety. I just couldn't do it. And that was it.
And I did something that perhaps most people wouldn't do in that situation because eight hours later, I was actually walked into the pub to have a drink. And the barman, the owner of the bar, he just started laughing. He said, I can't believe I can't believe how cocky, can't believe that you would do this, that you would stand me up, leave me short-staffed, tell me that you're ill in bed and then turn up in the evening to have a drink.
I said, yeah, I know. It's weird, isn't it? And he was, I think he was so took about, he was laughing. He couldn't believe it.
My landlord was in there like, you did what? I said, yeah. I said, are we going to get kebabs? Because I used to get occasionally have kebabs on a Sunday evening and just like lock up and sort of stay there for an hour and have a kebab. You know, I didn't, I didn't try and say, well, can you give me another go? No, there's no point.
But I did sort of, I might have apologised. I'm not sure. I can't remember.
I probably did. But to actually just walk in there, completely oblivious. I'll go, hi, Ted, can I have a pint of lager, please? So you're feeling better then, are you? What do you mean? I've forgotten.
It's like, well, this morning you said you were ill. I said, oh no, I was lying. So yeah, he was funny.
I liked him. So that's a little bit of stories of my bar, my bar career. Worked in a complete dive.
Worked in the busiest bar that ever was. I don't think anywhere could be busier than that Butlin's bar in that time. It was so busy.
And then I worked in a comedy club, but I helped out in a comedy club rather than work there. And it was at times really, really, really busy. But it used to be in floods because the comedians would be on, then there'd be a break.
When the comedians were on stage, the bar would be empty, generally. So there'd be a massive rush for about 15 minutes. And then everyone would go and sit down again and watch the next act.
With Butlin's, it was just all the time. It was all the time. There was no... It was just all the time.
Occasionally, they would have things where they closed the bar during the act, but generally, because it was like Christmas celebrations, Christmas parties, it was like, oh my goodness, all the time. And then of course, the pub. I never really took off.
But there was a lady in there that I met. I really liked her. I really, really liked her.
This is ages ago. When you think about it, this is 2000, let's say 2008, late 2007, early 2008 when I first met her. She had a boyfriend, so nothing was going to happen there.
Not with him, anyway. And she told us it was 12 years ago. It's weird, isn't it? Time goes so quickly sometimes.
And other times, it just seems to flow by so ever so gently. So I'm going to go now. I think that's enough from me for today.
Thank you very much for listening. Please, please, please remember to be kind to yourself because you deserve to be happy. Take care.
Lots of love. Speak to you tomorrow. Bye.
Paragraph spacing and recurring name or title errors have been tidied. Because this began as a voice transcription, an occasional word or piece of punctuation may still be incorrect.